New tank check in.

[BigJPDC]

Yes! Millipora it is. The green one is hairy, but the red one is not - does that mean I have it in a bad spot? I also have a slimer, and again am not sure how to tell if it is opened up or happy. The good news is that I have holes drilled throughout my rockwork now so I can mix and match as I go.

Emerald crab - awesome advice! I haven't replenished my cleanup crew so thought I would get a handful of nassarius. Can you believe that I haven't lost one hermit or either of the ceriths? I am pretty sure that the CBB has picked the turbos and nassarius into hiding or death though - I saved three nassarius by putting them in the nano and haven't seen another one. If the emerald works, you will get those pallys. =)

I told you about me and the pep shrimp - never seen them after placing in the tank. I think I have enough interesting rockwork for a cleaner now though.

In other news, I found the candy hog in the nano this morning in the AC70 fuge. He was all tangled up in the chaeto and we had some tense (and wet) moments freeing him. It's amazing he swam up the waterfall and over the gutter guard barrier, without missing and landing on the ground.

jp

[newreefbishop]

The "hairy" one may be happy, as that is a sign that the polyps are fully extended and the coral is happy, the red one may just need some more time to adjust, give it a couple days before moving it higher up or into more or less flow. Slimers ( Im assuming you have a green slimer) are ver very forgiving and one of the fastest growing SPS on the market. If you can see small flower like polyps, moving in the flow, then your good.

Emerald Crabs are interesting little things, they are great at cleaning things up....this is actually my second the first was before I had much coral or much in the way of knowledge. I over reacted when I saw it picking coraline of the rock.

Do me a favor, get a flashlight, and some red saran wrap or whatever color you can get to tint the light. After lights out got an hour or so.....get your light and stand back an few feet out so....you have to move quickly, but I am almost certain you will find at least one of those peppermint.

candy hog? Please elaborate some more on that one

Mylton

[BigJPDC]

=) I did some research on those crabs and keep seeing red flags that they will eat small fish so I decided to wait a little bit.

I am very interested in how SPS does in my tank. I have the three frags in three different spots. Over the next month I may redo my light rack to add another T5 and then up the photoperiod. I would go A+ AB A+ AB A+ for a nice blue during full lighting and screaming blues out accross the street at actinic only.

I think my chaeto is acting as a big ball of filter floss, as my water is the clearest it has been in a while even with my return flow cranked up. At the same time as I strted chaeto, I removed my carbon bag. I am betting the carbon bag became a nitrate bag for me sothe next time I run carbon it will be in a reactor.

Candy Hog - I'm not sure why this is considereed a hogfish as it looks a lot like a wrasse to me. I may never get a good picture of him, he moves very quickly. I thought that the pods were taking over the nano and now there are no more pod problems.

http://www.liveaquaria.com/product/p...catid=1157&N=0

I thought about moving him up to the main tank, but the yashia haze has bonded with it - they both sleep in the same burrow and if you go by the tank, the yashia won't come out until the candy hog has done a few laps around the tank first.

jp

[BigJPDC]

cranked up full lighting tonight after sunset - pix of the new SPS. I visited the LFS this afternoon and giant versions of my frags looked the same - i.e. green is hairy and red is not hairy.





FTS



jp

[newreefbishop]

JP......everything look fabulous....

Im not sure you glued thos sps frags down
but are you planning on moving them closer to the top?

Also those zoo frags can get moved up. And put the Anemone right in the middle.....Its the missing cog.....im telling you....you gotta find one man.....everything looks great...

[BigJPDC]

Yes, you have me thinking now. The last 8 frags I put in after the new rock are all in holes I drilled, so I can move them around with ease. I thought I would start them out low, and then move up over time. The green millepora is in a spot where it gets lots of flow and I just upped my photoperiod to 5.5 hours for the 11Ks.

I'll keep posting progress pics so please let me know if they look like they need a change.

I have my eyes open for that anem. When I find one I might frag the frogspawn and put pieces lower and on the corners, to give the anem the center of the tank like you said.

I dosed some Coral Vital last week and I swear I am getting blue\silver coraline spots now.

[newreefbishop]

From my experience, the only anem that doesnt move too much is the LTA. Keep that in mind. The anem might be you next item as you dont want it moving over you coral.

Remember our talk a couple months back? BTA (Bubble Tip) which is the one I think you would prefer, is able to move around high, to low, all over the tank till it finds a spot that it likes. From what i have seen in my tank, it rarely stayed where i wanted it to.

LTA, which can come in a variety of colors just like the BTA. And look just as stunning as the BTA, isnt as picky. It likes the sand bed. medium flow and good light. I put mine in one spot it moved....two inches at most....and settled in the bed. They rarely move, but need a bit more space, because of the tentacles and their maximum size.

Carpet, are beautiful, I have never had one.....but they are beautiful, but dont want to risk any fish getting swallowed.


Coral Vital? I went to the LFS to get some dKH buffer and some tank "vitamins" and looked at it. Wanted to read some more about it before I tried it, but if its working in your tank...hey I should give it a shot....

[BigJPDC]

=) I don't think I'd know if it was working, but I bought it back when I was trying anything to keep my elegance alive and just ran across the bottle the other day. I think the consensus on the chemistry forum would be that it doesn't do anything or that you are replenishing elements that get replenished by the water changes anyways.

I put between 4-5 mls of Kent Pro Buffer dKH per gallon of topoff and my pH is steady at 8.3ish and dkh at 8-9. That's really it. I hope that I will see my calcium go down, so I know the SPS is eating it up and I can start adding that too.

Awesome advice on the anems.
jp

[BigJPDC]

OK, I rearranged everything. Pics later.

jp

[newreefbishop]

Rearranged? wow that was fast....lol

Cant wait to see the pics...

[BigJPDC]

I just noticed that in 3 days the tank will be 6 months old. I think I should start a new thread since I'm not really checking in the new tank anymore.

[newreefbishop]

I did that as well....just ask a couple of admins for this forum to change the name of the thread.....

I vote for 65 RR Build

LOL

[BigJPDC]

Well go figure. I went out to get some cleanup crew and brought home a cleaner shrimp instead. Cerith snails were going for $3.50 and my new white 'rock' is getting brown algae on it.

So anyways, I saw the shrimp the next morning running around the tank walls, and never again. I wonder if I have some evil hitchhiker under my rocks that has eaten 2 pep shrimp, a cleaner and all my nassarius, without any signs. It's spooky.

Pics coming of the SPS up high in the rocks, but the red one seems to be happier as it is hairy now like the green one.



jp

[BigJPDC]

OK, found the shrimp. I took down the entire right side stack of rock, which gave me a chance to kill that sponge and scrape a couple of pally frags. Out of nowhere the shrimmp shows up, but we still haven't seen him since. I thought they were supposd to be more social?

jp

[BigJPDC]

Well, if NRB is closing his 65 build thread, then so am I.

These pics (except the first one) represent the one year anniversary of my tank build, so it's fitting that I close with them. I've learned a ton, made a handful of new friends and it was all worth it.













One thing I learned for sure is that I could have gone bigger without much penalty in terms of expenses and effort needed to build and maintain. I already have a 240 4x4 cube in the planning stages, but I'll leave that for next year's build threads.

cheers, and thanks for reading and helping me along the way.
jp

[newreefbishop]

All I can say is wow.....looks great. Ill be looking forward to the new thread once you start. I could have a 215 gallon tank for this build but the wife didnt have a spot for me to put it in. But she says when we move in 2-3 years Ill get my monster tank. Im planning a 450 gallon display. Once again thats planning...lol chances are it will end up being around 240-50. Anyway...its great seeing what all your hard work turned out. and hope to see you tagging along on my thread.

[Liquid Hobby]

Well, well, well. Has it been a year already!?

Nice work. I guess it's time to update my thread with my one year pics and close it down in keeping with the trend.